Chocolate Tasting Certificate

Our ‘Chocolate Tasting Certificate’ courses will methodically take your through everything you need to know to gain a real appreciation of the new world of fine chocolate bar tasting, from cacao varieties through to chocolate production methods.

Fine chocolate is fast becoming as sophisticated as wine, but there are not yet any courses tailored to learning about tasting and appreciating fine origin chocolate. While there are plenty of great and accomplished courses teaching the craft of working with chocolate, there’s no structured learning course that will help you develop as a chocolate taster over time.

The Chocolate Tasting certificate courses take an interactive approach, exploring the gastronomic senses to awaken and educate our chocolate palates, while taking an in depth look at the fascinating and fast evolving world of small scale fine chocolate making, based on our 20 years of experience tasting and reviewing fine chocolate and exploring the world of fine cacao.

Courses

We’ve structured our course into three levels, building from a short introduction to the subject that will give you the basic tools for chocolate tasting into more advanced courses that take you deeper into the subject as you become more export.

Each course will finish with a multiple-choice examination to check your understanding and qualify you for the course certificate.

Seventy% is the first to hold ‘Chocolate Taster’ courses in the UK, but is a partner helping to build a common curriculum that over the next year will become part of an internationally recognised course structure. Courses will shortly be available in the US, Italy and South Africa, with other locations available for groups on request.

1 day course, taken in a 1 day Saturday session or 3 evenings. Fee: £145

Level 1 Certificate in Chocolate Tasting

Level 1 takes you through the basics of what is fine chocolate and the sensory elements used in chocolate tasting.

Held over a one day workshop or three evenings, the Level 1 course provides a good grounding in chocolate tasting and includes tasting of 9 or more different origin or blended fine dark chocolate bars, tasted in different forms for an understanding of aroma, length, texture and taste.

The course finishes with a 30 minute multiple choice exam based on the course content. Certificates will be issued upon achieving a pass mark.

The Level 2 intermediary course explores the world of fine and origin chocolate in greater depth, looking in detail at the styles of different chocolate makers and different types of chocolate, including dark, milk and white and new trends. Treatment and flaws in cacao are examined as well as the chocolate production chain and how these affect flavour.

The course touches on chocolate history, with an emphasis on flavour. Over 25 chocolate bars and samples are tasted, with repeat tasting, profiling and blind tasting to gain a full understanding.

The course is held over three one day workshops or nine evenings and provides fuller understanding of fine chocolate and its flavour possibilities.

The course finishes with a 60 minute multiple choice exam based on the course content. Certificates will be issued upon achieving a pass mark.

Entry requirements: Pass in Level 1 Certificate of Chocolate Tasting

The Level 2 course includes:

Chocolate production

Chocolate types and styles

Sensory exploration, practice and physiology

Process chain tasting – bean to bar

Tasting practice and profiling

Cacao production, quality and flaws

Cacao farming and economics

Chocolate history overview

Take away study guide

Certificate for exam passes

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5 day advanced course, taken over 5 day sessions or 15 evenings. Fee: £650

Level 3 Certificate in Chocolate Tasting

Level 3 provides a full and comprehensive understanding of cacao, advanced chocolate tasting, production, history and includes practical work and optional visits to productions facilities (additional travel/accommodation charges will apply).

The course provides an advanced understanding of sensory tasting, chocolate production, couverture and cacao varieties and production. Practical work includes working with chocolate through ganache making and tempering for a deeper understanding of taste. Marketing and branding and chocolate history are covered in greater depth, along with cacao production and the cocoa trade. The tasting extends to filled bonbons and the covers the basics of filled styles such as ganaches, pralines, gianduja. Mass market products are also looked at, with a chance to apply advanced tasting techniques to more commercial products.

The Level 3 advanced course requires five days in total, taken as one day workshops or fifteen evenings. Graduates will hold an advanced level understanding of the fine chocolate world and will achieve an unrivaled level expertise, for personal or professional use.

Passing the advanced course requires sitting a theory exam with multiple choice and written sections plus a blind tasting and profiling of three chocolate bars. Certificates will be issued upon achieving a pass mark.

Entry requirements: Pass in Level 2 Certificate of Chocolate Tasting

The Level 3 course includes:

Advanced sensorial – recipes, ingredients, particle size, time

Chocolate production – machines, temperature, conching

Advanced tasting, blind practice, couverture

Practical work – ganaches, tempering

Advanced tasting of single origins from bean to bar

Cacao origins, DNA, lastest research

Chocolate culture and history

Cacao production survey, good and bad, hybrids and mixing

Filled chocolate production and tasting

Market segmentation, brand development and packaging

Health and physiology

Mass market tasting

Cocoa trading – hedge market and farmers

40 products tasted with repeat tasting in different formats and practical work